Goodbye Billy...

It is with a heavy heart I am at my kitchen table today...my brother and family must say farewell to a good friend...Billy Kissner...My heart hurts for them as they must say goodbye to one who was too young to be saying goodbye...

Billy near the same age as my brother...Billy Kissner...Wildcat Drilling...my brother I think got to know him through working...something they both loved doing.   I remember hearing stories about Billy though detail I do not recall...I remember laughter...one of my memories of Billy and I even caught a picture was when we drove over to Gunnison to watch my nephew, Ethan, play ball.  Billy and Shane were the coaches...This picture came to mind and I hoped I could find it...

I think of the last time I had seen Billy...it was at my brother's house.  He had stopped by for something and it was after he had lost his wife...I remember him asking about Heather...how she was doing...of saying he was sorry.   I just remember the pain he seemed to be feeling on his own...but thought of another...I remember walking and talking with him...and I do not think I seen him since.

I watched from a distance of Billy's story...but I watched through my brother's eyes.   Through eyes of love and friendship.  For being there for another...not just when times are good but times when your life is not...Proverbs 17:17 comes to mind...

"A friend loves at all times,

And a brother is born for adversity."

 

Adversity--the dictionary says "a state of hardship or affliction, misfortune" but then it goes on to say..."a calamitous event".    CALAMITOUS what is that word...I am not certain I have ever heard it and so again I look it up...an adjective...involving calamity...catastrophic...comparing it to fires and hurricanes...those things in which one thinks they might never recover from!    And I realize my brother fits this proverb...He lived this proverb for his friend...his brother!    And today he speaks in front of others and I hold him up in prayer...that hearts will remember the Billy that they knew and loved...that God would open hearts to love and compassion to his children and grandchildren and not live in a state of judgment and condemnation.

 

 

I do not know or understand the darkness that consumes one as they go in a place that I have never ventured and hope I never go...I do not know what crosses their minds or what does not...I think of the pit of despair...I feel Billy was in that pit...why he did not get out in the way I had hoped...perhaps he got out all the same.   I know my brother and he have had discussions...of faith...of life...I pray that Billy is in a place of no more pain...though I feel for those that are left behind...the ones that will miss him daily.

 

I heard a guy talking of the movie a Wonderful Life and of our thinking what would it have been like if you were not here...it is one that I think we should all ponder...do I make a difference in being here?   Will others miss me when I'm gone...I think of Izzy's cup song...

 

"When I'm gone (when I'm gone)

You're gonna miss me when I'm gone..."

 

 

And in looking for Billy's obituary...I come across two beautiful reasons why his life mattered...why he was here...

 

 

This photo was taken from the Delta Independent





 

I am saddened that these two little ones will not get to know their Grandpa other than through stories and pictures that I hope others continue to share...I do not understand the darkness that take away such rays of light...I thought of this the other day...I wrote in my journal...we do not see the entire picture that is open before us...only brief segments that are sometimes filled with darkness...like a puzzle...it is sometimes the dark pieces that showcase and highlight the intense light...

 

Last night as the shepherd was coming back from working with my brother and his son...I was the chore boy...as of late I have received what seemed opportunities to take pictures of sunsets that remind me of one who has passed on...and the other day as I drove...without my camera...I saw the most beautiful sunset and I wondered is that Billy's and I won't be able to capture it...my mind held it and I think of the light that illuminated it.   Yet last night as I was later finishing the evening chores...it was just me and the animals in the darkness as the sun set in the west...behind the very mountains that separate me from my brother and his family...The moon was shining and reflected off of the stock tank and I knew that I had to go and get it...but then I watched as the sun set and as I stumbled in the darkness...I captured a blurry picture of the sun setting...an unsettled mysterious sunset...and I wondered is this Billy's sunset...and I find a scripture from Job...that seems to go with it...

 

 

But I cannot stop thinking of the pool...of the reflection...and I hope that Billy's reflection to those that he loved and loved him...will continue to reflect on them and be a part of them...I think of Billy's organs going to others...that his heart will touch another...I choose to try and find hope from his loss even though I don't understand...I share Billy's moon...

 

 

 

 

HOPE...I hold on to that word...there is a song that seemed to come to me by Jeremy Camp..."There will be a day"

 

 

This song brings comfort that there will be a day with no more tears...when we see Jesus face to face.  And God seemed to share in Ephesians 3...my prayer for my brother...my prayer for others...In the New King James Version...

 

 

Appreciation of the Mystery

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,^{[c] 15} from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.



 

lyp